A Silicon Valley Train Gets Stuck
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Thus, it is not unlike a VC making early stage investments in a company.
BTW, I'm in NY State and it also has net tax outflows.
I think you need to get out of SV more often.
The top 3 ranked sectors in California by GDP are: (1) health, education - 18%, (2) real estate, rental and leasing - 17% and (3) trade, transportation and utilities - 16%.[1]
Not sure where tech would fall, but probably in: information - 6% or professional and technical services 9%.
Silicon Valley seems like it's a big deal when you're in the middle of it, but it's nowhere near the biggest GDP contributor in the state.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_Domestic_Product_of...
(FWIW, I've looked at the report that purports to back the 'CA pays more than it receives' and it isn't super accurate)
Not saying I agree with the conceit that a state should have the level of economic autonomy argued for the the original post, but your argument doesn't hold water.
Although I suspect much of this effect is explained by the fact that states get fixed senate votes regardless of population.
Looking at fiscal inflows and outflows isn't the benchmark of who gains from a relationship and whether it is positive-sum.
I mean I guess they could keep taking more and more money from you every year and giving more and more back, but generally any money they give you would be subject to federal taxes, unless they give it and take it all away again every year, just to give it back again.
It would be a huge headache but I suppose it could work. Especially if they made it like a voluntary tax overpayment or something.
Edit: Also, unless you have it all sitting around in cash, any money you spent during the year on non-deductible things you'd have to pay tax on.
It'd be ironic if California became more nationalistic than people at the national level --I mean, why not SF county ask residents not to pay Sacto and why not the FinDi ask their residents not to pay taxes to SF county? How far do you want to take that? Down to the "sovereign citizen" -which would seem the opposite of what you are looking for.
the imbalance between what California contributes vs receivers
Remember that CA has had a lot of power in Congress under Democrats, including two senior Senators and the Speaker of the House twice.
Boxer's retirement leaves CA in the 115th Congress with Feinstein, 8th, and Harris, 97th.
2/50 senators = 4%
55/538 electoral votes = 10.2%
Compared to:
Population = 13% of US
GDP = 15% of US
As a frequent commuter, I couldn't agree more with this paragraph.
Oh, well, hindsight, NIMBYism, pop growth etc.
BART is a costly system and they've been masking the true costs for decades by deferring maintenance, the $3.5B they've gotten from taxpayers is just a portion of what they need to bring the system up to date. And worse, they can spend up to a third of that on operational costs... which are sky high in part because BART is saddled with high labor costs and can't rein in its union's lucrative work rules. Case in point, the Warm Springs station is not even open yet, but it's fully staffed, including janitors to clean an empty, unused station.
But the problems don't end there -- BART's equipment is non-standard gauge so every order is a custom order with high lead times and there's no world market for BART's gauge. While Caltrain is able to supplement capacity by buying surplus cars.
And BART is designed with no passing tracks, so there's no such thing as an "express" train. Want to go from San Jose to SF? Well you've got to stop at every station in between. While with Caltrain you can take a 5 stop "baby bullet".
And finally, the capacity of nearly the entire system is dependent on how fast passengers can get on and off the trains at Embarcadero station. BART has a billion dollar band-aid for that, by digging out the other side of the station so passengers can board from both sides. What they really need are multiple tracks, like what Caltrain has at their SF station (and other high volume transit systems throughout the world)
A ring around the bay or a second Transbay tube would alleviate the Transbay bottleneck.
On the plus side it's all electric and works with minute headway.
I know there are some M2 sets still sometimes used but those will be replaced once the 30-60 some odd bar car sets come in.
Also on a separate note, you really can't fault the MTA here for running old cars, they actually do some pretty good maintenance on there fleets both commuter and subway. Running old cars is about maximizing the invest in your fleet, the average lifetime generally being around 40 years.
It seems the MTA learnt there lesson with differed maintanance after the 80's. Just look at the current state of MBTA to the north or WAMTA to the south (it also helps the MTA has a large dedicated funding stream which allot of other transit properties in US lack)
The intercity 125 in the UK despite being over 40 years old is still fast (125mph), reliable (engines have all been replaced fairly recently) and very comfortable and quiet, even in standard class.
I thought that was normal. Is there anywhere that this isn't the case?
Regarding exhaust fumes, get a seat at the back of the train: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/02/07/go-transit-passe...
Here's an interesting comparison:
48 business weeks of trips, on Clipper card: $3,456 (48•5•2•7.20)
12 monthly passes: $2,289.60 (12•190.80)
1 annual GO pass: $190 (assuming 83+ other people also use it; min. $15,960 spent per company.)
I know (from personal experience) that Stanford is a heavy GO pass user. I'm curious how many others are.
You may not need a tax. Instead, an increase in the coast of the GO pass may be enough!
The bookends are the most expensive part to build in, and the parts with the best existing mass transit; their of the least marginal value until they are connected with each other.
San Jose into the Valley is quite a sensible initial operating segment, in terms of bang for the buck.
http://kvpr.org/post/two-hour-daily-commute-thousands-valley...
The logic for starting in the middle is that it created economic assistance (as a side effect) in an area with a jobs problem. Why not start that part sooner rather than later?
And at the same time, they're doing construction in the Central Valley, which is cheaper and easier on a per-mile basis. Just wish they could find a way to do it faster though; 7 years for SJ-Bakersfield seems like an unreasonably long time.
Let's be honest, it was an important if not dominant reason for this project.
It's true that building the smaller initial construction segment in the Valley was driven by economic development concerns, but the Valley needed to be part of any sensible initial operating segment anyway, so why not start building their if the side benefits were greatest there?
This is much like the broken-window-fallacy. The reason not to start in the middle is because the middle (especially on its own) doesn't have a lot of inherent value.
Heck, if the train here (minus wages) costs more than it is worth this is a straight-up broken-window-fallacy.
Meanwhile... if you're going to build a high-speed line from SF to LA, why not start the project by
1. In locations which already have rail infrastructure, upgrading that infrastructure to the required standard, and
2. In locations which lack existing infrastructure or connections to the planned stops of the line, get the construction on that going
And if as a side effect it boosts the economies of the places in (2), well, that's a nice side effect. But "we were going to do this anyway, doing it in this order gets this side effect that's useful" is not the broken-window fallacy.
Plus, you know, infrastructure isn't generally built for its high profit margins; it's built because of the profit it generates in other sectors.
Not really. Lots of projects can start out in the red and then provide more value longer-term. This is particularly true when talking about improving transit to impoverished areas.
If you want to provide welfare to people without jobs, then provide welfare. Don't provide secret welfare and call it a high speed train.
The initial operating segment runs through the Valley to San Jose; that's pretty close to the S.F. end , and is the third biggest city in California (and the second biggest covered by the whole Phase 1 LA-to-SF alignment.)
Obviously, the initial operating segment isn't going to connect both ends, and short of doing that, where specifically would be better than the actual planned IOS?
Sure, the initial construction segment is a small section in the valley that would probably see little ridership without being connected to some place nearer to the endpoints, but the ICS is not the whole IOS.
No, the initial plan was Burbank to Merced.
Not that the initial (or any intermediate) plan is even germane to the discussion.
The planned initial operating segment has one endpoint in the third largest city in the state, and passes through the fifth largest city in the state, so the idea that it's in a place where no one lives is, well, what recently has become known as an "alternative fact".
Since we're discussing how the existing project is being built and is planned to be operated, and not historical plans that have been rejected as suboptimal, that would be irrelevant in any case. It's also, AFAICT, not true; in both the final 2014 Business Plan with the Merced to Burbank IOS, and the draft 2016 Business Plan (they are done in even numbered years) which shifted to the San Jose to Bakersfield IOS, Stockton was not only not part of the IOS, but not even part of the Phase 1 SF-to-LA plan, only the Phase 2 expansion to Sacramento and San Diego, which is more of a vague concept than a concrete plan.)
It will make a lot of temporary jobs -- and transient workers will come from hundreds of miles away to work on the project and will leave when it's done so many of the jobs won't directly benefit local residents. Small towns will see a brief increase in business during the construction, then it'll die away, along with the small businesses that sprung up to support it.
The prevailing mood in 08-09 was also that CAHSR would be used similarly to the economic stimulus passed by congress. You would think listening to CAHSR blog and their ilk back then that Fresno and Bakersfield were the navel of the world.
I ride the Caltrain about once a week and I haven't encountered a delay due to a locomotive failure. How often does this happen?
Also accidents with cars and pedestrians happens more frequently than they should. I don't know if the upgrades to the line include raising and separating the track wherever possible.
Tbh it's pretty nutty the US doesn't do more of this, even in new schemes like LAs light rail there are dozens of at grade crossings. While more expensive in the short term to build i think really you should be aiming for 100% grade seperation for new projects, even if that means closing some less used roads to make it affordable.
It would also have a big impact on journey times as electric trains can accelerate and decelerate a lot quicker than the current diesel ones.
Why don't they look at variable tolling on 101 (or at least an express toll lane) and divert funds to this project? That would seem like a win win: transit users get upgraded service which would encourage more people to switch and drivers have less traffic to deal with as people move to transit, plus they can pay for a more reliable journey if they are in a rush.
OK. Just thinking out loud here. $1.9 billion. 65,000 people per day. That's about $30K per person.
In other words, you can almost buy a Tesla Model 3 for each person. Yet, that would not deal with congestion. Scratch that idea.
Is this a point-to-point route? Are most of those people going from San Jose to San Francisco or are there a ton of stops in the way?
Next thought is: How many electric buses could one purchase with that money? At $400K each, 4,750 buses. That's a lot of eco-friendly buses!
OK, but, how many do we need to move 65,000 people per day? Well, if all 65,000 want to go at once, about 1,625 buses. And that would cost $650 billion, or 1/3 of the $1.9 billion set aside for this project.
How would 1,625 electric buses, for 1/3 the cost, affect the region?
Yet, it is probably reasonable to assume we don't need to move all 65,000 people at once.
In looking around it seems reasonable to assume around 2,000 riders per hour on average. If we go with 10,000 (why not?) we would need 250 buses. Now our equipment cost is down to $100 million.
BTW, if we switch to natural gas buses that cost goes down to $62.5 million. Not saying this is the best option, just providing comparative data.
I am not going to reach any conclusion here. Just exploring very, very rough numbers quickly. I think this would only work well if the bus riders are "long haul", meaning they don't have to stop at every freeway off-ramp and navigate surface streets to pick-up and drop-off people.
One could use check-in/out to optimize bus routes. Don't stop where nobody wants to get on/off.
There's a lot of space between $100 million and $1.9 billion. That's 19 times more taxpayer money spent. Is this sensible? Does it survive mathematical analysis more strict than my quick 10 minute think?
On the one side I think I'd rather spend $100 to even as high as $500 million on an electric powered bus infrastructure. Why? Because this would be a huge shot in the arm for that industry and the consequences could ripple throughout the nation. Bus prices could go down from the current $400K, new technologies could be spurred into existence and electric vehicle adoption across the board (passenger cars) is likely to see gains as well.
My numbers could be completely off the mark, I know. That said, on an admittedly very flawed first inspection, I would not be surprised if investing a few hundred million on a next-generation electric bus transport system might be better than dumping 19 times more money on rail.
I doubt this approach would make any sense at all in a place like Los Angeles, but this Caltrain case might be unique.
I'd rather invest in the future whenever possible.
So in construction costs: 1900000000 dollar /130000 riders /20 year = 700 $/rider/year.
It helps the economy of the city/state as more people can live and work there increasing you tax base. Helps housing smooth out housing prices a little as people can commute the same time from further out.
Also you have to compare against the cost of increasing road capacity. Trains carry a lot of people and aren't subject to traffic like busses. Nobody likes taking the bus, it has a stigma for some reason.
Its expensive, but infrastructure always is. Oddly so in the US.
Personally I think the Dumbarton rail bridge would improve the overall economy more by shifting some activity towards the cheaper South Bay but Caltrain electrification is a very good thing.
Nope. Most riders are on the train at the same time most drivers are on the freeways -- during morning and evening rush hours. And that's also when Caltrain runs most of its trains -- outside of the rush-hour periods, they only run one train per hour in each direction, while during rush hour you see a train more like every 15 minutes.
So you do need to move most of those 65,000 people all in a short time period, which means any road-based alternative will just be contributing to the already-bad congestion on the roads at those hours, and will need its entire fleet mobilized during the rush hours in order to try to keep up with demand.
- I tap my Clipper card.
- A Caltrain employee checks my card about every other time I'm on a train.
- Sometimes they threaten to arrest me because I didn't tap it hard enough 3 days ago.
The Democrats are free to introduce a clean bill with just the Caltrain electrification funds. A clean bill (funding ALL of it, even) would sail through Congress.